Chad Pergram of Fox News has an interesting post on the artwork in the Capitol Rotunda. I’m sure I saw what he describes here, but I don’t remember thinking much about it. Of course, I didn’t have a tour guide.
Plastered against the arched ceiling above the Rotunda floor is a gigantic canvas called “The Apotheosis.” It shows George Washington, accompanied by thirteen maidens, rising into the heavens.
Some tour guides and Congressional staff try to downplay the meaning of the word “apotheosis.” But in its official literature about the fresco, even the Architect of the Capitol’s office says that apotheosis “means literally the raising of a person to the rank of a god.”
There’s always chatter about the U.S. being a Christian nation and holding Judeo-Christian values. But in the most-hallowed temple of American democracy, at the top of one of the most recognized pinnacles on the planet, there’s a fresco of the first American president, ascending into the heavens as a god. Alongside 13 women.
And it takes the health care bill to stir people into a tizzy?
I believe it was intended to be allegorical. But it is over the top.
As for the thirteen maidens, my money’s on Georgia, the two Carolina sisters, and Virginia being the cutest.